Rotorhub 
Chiltern Air Support Unit?s EC135 clocks up 10,000 flying hours
One of the Chiltern Air Support Units helicopters has reached a significant flying landmark.
On Thursday 15 October, the Eurocopter EC135 aircraft, based at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, reached 10,000 flying hours, the second highest flying hours of its type in the world.
The helicopter, which is one of two aircraft that covers the Thames Valley, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire areas, first flew in April 1999. During that time it has:
• Attended 24,000 incidents
• Been directly responsible for over 1,650 arrests
• Assisted with 2,000 arrests
• Conducted over 3,500 searches for vulnerable or missing people
• Flown nearly 300 seriously injured people to hospital
• Helped recover property to the value of around £8,000,000
Supt Tony Ismay, head of the Thames Valley Police Tactical Support department, said: "This is a significant flying landmark and I am proud that one of our aircraft has become only the second of its type to reach 10,000 flying hours.
"Both of the Chiltern Air Support Unit aircraft have a range of high tech equipment, including thermal imager and daylight cameras, which help to provide an extra dimension to policing. The service they provide ranges from assisting with searching for offenders and missing people to evacuating casualties, and as can be seen from the figures, they are of huge benefit to both the public and our officers."
To mark the occasion, a certificate was presented to the Chiltern Air Support Unit yesterday (11/11) at RAF Benson by the Managing Director of Eurocopter UK Ltd, Markus Steinke.
He said: "I congratulate Chiltern Air Support Unit on this remarkable achievement with one of our EC135s. The Chiltern Air Support Unit, and other British police forces, are worldwide trendsetters in the exploration of this high tech, high performance, high reliability helicopter which has become the backbone of police forces n the UK and across Europe.
"Our Oxford facility will continue to be ready at all times to provide the full service support to you and thus the general public, here in our local area and across the British Isles."
Email this to a friend.